


House Rules

by mylordshesacactus



Category: RWBY
Genre: Background Fox/Coco, Card Games, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Picnics, Polyamory, Total Fluff, and someone tell pyrrha her hair's on fire, let them be happy, very background but she's definitely dating Fox too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7825456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylordshesacactus/pseuds/mylordshesacactus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Play moves to the dealer’s right, no Jokers, pool starts at five lien and Aces are wild!”</p><p>“Aces aren’t anything, Nora,” Blake explained patiently. “This is Go Fish.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	House Rules

In theory, libraries were for reading, Velvet thought as she stood on tiptoe and tried to reach the worn green binding of  _ Grimm Classification And Taxonomy: Standard Guide, Vol. IV _ . Reading and research. But, well, there were few enough places on campus as well-lit and comfortable.

And none of them had conveniently large tables.

“All right!” Velvet’s ears twitched at an enthusiastic announcement from a row and a half over. “Play moves to the dealer’s right, no Jokers, pool starts at five lien and Aces are wild!”

“Aces aren’t anything, Nora,” Blake explained patiently. “This is Go Fish.”

Grinning a bit, Velvet stretched her fingers to their limit, gave a little hop, and managed to tip _Classification and Taxonomy_ off the shelf and catch it with only a little frantic juggling. She placed it on top of _A_ _Grimm Warning: Identifying Signs Of Recent Dark Activity Before It’s Too Late (Dr. B. Oobleck), A_ _Grimm Reminder: Identifying Signs Of Recent Dark Activity Before It’s Too Late For Real This Time (Dr. B. Oobleck)_ and _Mistress of Eternity III: Lover Of Shadows_ —look, they were all adults here, she had nothing to be embarrassed about—just in time for her scroll to buzz.

_ Hey cutie. You’re late. _

With some careful balancing, Velvet managed to type back, _ i thought you said 3:30? _

“Oh hey, Velvet. Need a hand with that?”

Velvet looked up in surprise, nodding awkwardly to the assembled forces of teams RWBY and JNPR, who were arrayed around one of the tables with what appeared to be a mixture of two sets of cards divided between them.

“Oh!” Her stack of books started to slip, and she fumbled to catch it. “Hello, Ruby. What are you doing?”

“This is your fault,” Lie Ren informed her in a monotone.

“Oh.” Velvet blushed. All right, maybe Nora hadn’t been the best person to mention Coco’s amusing tendency to lose at strip poker whenever CFVY had a game to, but—well,  _ she’d  _ brought it up, not Velvet! And she’d seemed so attentive to the story! “Sorry?”

“Leave Velvet alone, Ren,” Blake told him.

Pyrrha had turned to wave to Velvet; Yang stole a blatant look at her cards and asked innocently, “Hey Pyrrha, any fives?”

“I have no idea how you do that,” Pyrhha commented, mystified as she handed over a card.

Velvet hoped they weren’t actually playing for money. It was hard to tell, with Nora. Her scroll buzzed again.

_ You’re on your scroll, V, check the time. _

Oh. Oops. It was 3:31. The books had been harder to reach than anticipated, without Coco or Yatsu to grab things off shelves for her!

_ Sorry! Coming! _

Coco’s response was immediate:  _ If you’re not here in five minutes I’m buying you new pajamas. _

Velvet hastily made her excuses to what few members of the RWBY-JNPR alliance hadn’t already been drawn into a web of courtlike intrigue with thrown accusations of treachery, a foiled political assassination, several under-the-table alliances she could already spot being formed, Weiss Schnee expertly negotiating resource exchanges on behalf of a third of the table, and Nora’s assertions that cheating was punishable by summary execution. Hurrying over to the self-checkout section, she scanned her small pile of reference materials out and registered them to her scroll before opening it again.

_ Would I have to wear them? _

This time, the response was even faster:  _ Darling, you don’t have to wear anything at all. _

Then, before Velvet could even control her blush, another alert, this time from Fox.

_ Stop sexting God and get down here, we’re hungry. _

Then again: _ *God _

And again: _ *GOD _

And finally:  _ I don’t know what she did to my autocorrect but I will kill her. _

Velvet giggled and gathered up her books. If she hurried, she could still get out to the courtyard inside Coco’s time limit…

“Oh! Velvet!”

She winced and looked over her shoulder. Yang Xiao Long had JNPR’s blonde leader in a casual headlock under her arm, but she looked genuinely concerned.

“Watch out, okay?” she said. “Cardin’s group of thugs was hanging out at the bottom of the west staircase earlier.”

Velvet flushed. It was bad enough having to put up with Cardin Winchester and people like him; even Beacon had punishments for fighting among students.  _ Especially  _ Beacon, maybe—when students could do as much damage as a Huntress-in-training, the school had to have harsh policies about violence. Provocation, even physical provocation, didn’t matter if you threw the first real punch. But having untested first-years pity her...

...Well. Not untested. She revised her assessment. RWBY was a very capable team, and she was certain they must have realized Blake was a Faunus too by now—though she didn’t say anything, just in case. Maybe it wasn’t pity any more than if Yatsu had given her the same warning. Just looking out for a friend.

Still.

“Thanks,” she said, forcing a smile. “But they don’t scare me.”

“Hell yeah,” Yang commented absently, punching an incoming cinder block out of the air. “See you ‘round, Velvet.”

Velvet, who had no idea where that cinder block had come from and was not eager to find out, hastily agreed and fled the building.

Via the eastern staircase.

* * *

_ Never play poker with team CFVY. _

That little gem of wisdom had been floating around by the end of their first semester, which Coco was inordinately proud of. And for good reason, too. Fox smirked after every hand; his constant level of blatant amusement tended to unsettle people. Velvet, for all that her reputation as a little shrinking violet was well-earned, always seemed to be underestimated until she was shyly and apologetically collecting everyone’s money. Yatsu’s poker face was just unreal. And Coco…

“All right,” Yatsu decided. “It’s the glasses.”

Coco grinned.

They weren’t playing poker, actually, if only because she’d decided that required too much attention for a picnic game. Yeah, yeah. Coco Adel, not the type people generally pictured organizing picnics in the park for her team. It couldn’t all be explosions and shattered records. Maybe she just  _ liked  _ getting a chance to stretch out on the grass with the people she loved, take in the autumn weather, enjoy some sandwiches and specialty salads from the best deli in Vale and a bottle of Mystrali wine they probably weren’t supposed to have on campus, and rob her team of all their hard-earned lien.

“Call it or don’t,” she said with a proprietary wave of her hand. “Awfully big pool to risk it on impugning your leader’s honor, but hey, I don’t control your life.”

“Is that reverse psychology?” Velvet wondered.

Coco took an extremely casual sip of wine, and said nothing.

“The glasses are cheating,” Fox agreed after a moment.

“Did you say cheat?” Coco replied. “I heard the word cheat. Velvet, did you hear a challenge?”

“Be nice, Coco.”

Yatsu crossed his arms. “I say she takes the glasses off. None of  _ us  _ have anything to help us bluff.”

“That’s why I’m in charge, Yatsu,” Coco said airily.

Yatsu snorted and rolled his eyes. “All in favor?”

“This isn’t a democracy!”

“Aye,” said Fox.

“Aye,” Yatsu agreed.

All eyes turned to Velvet. Predictably, she jumped, turned red, and folded her cards close to her chest, big dark eyes flicking around for a way out. She also looked guilty.

“Well…”

“Oh,” Coco declared. “You traitor.” Before Velvet, blushing even deeper now, could apologize, Coco shook her head and pulled her trademark shades off. She started to fold them to clip to her jacket, then thought better of it, smirked, and leaned over to rest them on the bridge of Velvet’s nose. “I hope you’re all happy.”

Yatsu nodded, satisfied.

_ “Now _ we can call it,” he decided.

Coco smirked. She sat forward, dyed lock of hair framing her face, and looked him dead in the eye.

“Three. Sevens.”

There was a long pause.

“Cheat,” Fox decided.

Smirking wider, Coco leaned down and flipped the top three cards off the discard pile. Seven of lanterns. Seven of palms. Seven of peaks.

Fox stared.

“Put the glasses back on,” he said, and folded the pot—at least thirty-two cards by now—into his hand with admirable grace. His team couldn’t help but laugh.

Satisfied with her moral victory, Coco sat back and waited for the others to gather themselves together for the next round.

“Nah,” she decided, looking over at Velvet. “They suit her too well.”

Velvet’s free hand came up automatically to brush the arms of the sunglasses. She sounded pleased. “Really?”

Coco winked.

Yatsu laughed. “She looks a little like you, Coco.”

Velvet gave a thoughtful tilt of the head, and Coco began to wonder if she should have thought harder before giving her glasses to a mimic.

Velvet had been sitting cross-legged, cards held in her lap while she picked at her leftover salad. Now, she unfolded her legs and stretched them out along the edge of the blanket, resting her weight languidly on one arm. Lips twitching slightly, she reached out to a half-empty bowl of carrot sticks and picked one up, holding it elegantly between her fingers like a cigarette. She bit off the end, spit it off to the side, then crossed her ankles, looked at Coco over the top of the frame, and winked.

At which point the boys, no longer able to control themselves, dissolved into howling laughter.

Coco stared, torn between laughter herself and feeling as if she had absolutely, somehow, been violated.

“She’s a better Coco than you are!” Fox laughed.

Yatsuhashi, meanwhile, was lying flat on the ground and wheezing, tears streaming down his face.

“You okay there, Yatsu?”

“With the,” he gasped. _ “Carrot.” _

Coco shook her head. “He’s fine.” Unable to completely stop herself from grinning, she turned to Velvet. “It’s probably weird that I thought that was hot.”

Velvet had gone from inviting self-assurance to blushing fiercely and hugging her knees to her chest the moment she’d dropped the act, and now she squeaked and turned even redder.

“Maybe?” she said weakly.

Coco’s smile softened, just a bit. The boys’ cards had scattered when they’d decided to start rolling on the ground, so she set her own aside and moved to Velvet’s side where she could reach over and brush a lock of hair off her shoulder. “Hey,” she said. “Confidence looks good on you, kid.”

Velvet’s smile was small but luminescent, and she uncurled just a little. Encouraged, she gave a little sly tilt of the head.

“Well,” she hedged. “I  _ guess  _ that’s what you could call it.”

Coco Adel knew Velvet’s emotional cues very, very well by now. She also knew a challenge when she saw one.

“Oh yeah?” She shifted, facing Velvet more fully, a grin starting to tug at the corners of her mouth. “What would  _ you  _ call it, cottontail?”

Yatsu, who had apparently recovered from his sudden fit, cleared his throat loudly. His eyes were still streaming, but his voice was mostly steady as he stood, brushed himself off, and announced, “I am leaving.”

Fox snapped his fingers and shot a finger gun of agreement at his teammate. Coco leaned back as they passed, and Fox obediently squatted to kiss her before wandering off.

Coco smirked in Velvet’s direction.

“Well?”

Velvet was still faintly pink, but she did a respectable job of affecting casual.

“Oh,” she said, looking away and smiling. “I don’t know. Brash. Presumptuous. Cocky…”

“Get over here!” Coco exclaimed.

She didn’t tackle Velvet. That would be undignified. What she did was grab her around the waist, tug her close with the ease of a woman who carried a gatling gun in her purse on a regular basis, and dig her fingers into her side.

Velvet yelped and squirmed.  _ “Coco! _ Get off! Ee—uncle!  _ Uncle!” _

Coco laughed and backed off, kissing her temple. She would have stopped anyway, of course; but particularly in public, where she didn’t want anyone to see her wrangling her girlfriend and get the wrong idea. Pyrrha Nikos had already paused across the lawn to take a second look, one hand resting on her spear. Good girl. Exactly what she should have done—was her  _ hair on fire? _

Velvet shot her a mock glare. “Tickling isn’t fair, Coco.”

“Mmm.” Coco tightened her arm again, more gently this time, and pressed a kiss to the base of Velvet’s ear before taking the opportunity to snag her glasses back and return them to their rightful place. “I’ll make it up to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't actually mean to write this entire thing it just sort of happened.
> 
> CFVY is playing Cheat, also known as Bullshit, the rules to which can be found [here](https://www.pagat.com/beating/cheat.html). I don't know what JNPR's playing. It's probably best not to think about that too hard.
> 
> Card suits: Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and Spades are Trees, Lanterns, Palms and Peaks respectively. One for each kingdom! (Mystral, Vale, Vacuo, Atlas.) I put too much thought into that, probably, but hey, it was fun.


End file.
